The Count of Monte Cristo

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wound, and, arrived at the salon, Villefort uttered a sigh that was
almost a sob, and sank into a chair.

Then the first pangs of an unending torture seized upon his heart. The
man he sacrificed to his ambition, that innocent victim immolated on
the altar of his father's faults, appeared to him pale and threatening,
leading his affianced bride by the hand, and bringing with him remorse,
not such as the ancients figured, furious and terrible, but that slow
and consuming agony whose pangs are intensified from hour to hour up
to the very moment of death. Then he had a moment's hesitation. He had
frequently called for capital punishment on criminals, and owing to his
irresistible eloquence they had been condemned, and yet the slightest
shadow of remorse had never clouded Villefort's brow, because they were
guilty; at least, he believed so; but here was an innocent man whose
happiness he had destroyed: in this case he was not the judge, but the
executioner.